


Death's Scythe

by Abby_Ebon



Series: It's Not A Rabbit Hat [58]
Category: Gundam Wing, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-30
Updated: 2013-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:54:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abby_Ebon/pseuds/Abby_Ebon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>LizzieLyn's prompt: HP/Gundam Wing/AC Crossover. The "Master of Death" (Harry Potter) has heard whispers about the "Deathscythe" (Duo Maxwell) for awhile now and he's (Harry) always wanted to meet him (Duo). Now he finally gets the chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> LizzieLyn's Notes: "Master of Death" is not just a title, it has to mean something (closer  
> relationship with death/immortality/can order death not to take someone/can  
> bring people back maybe only under certain conditions/whatever). I see the  
> 'whispers' as coming from either Death or Harry's magic, but they could just  
> be rumors. It depends on how you want to develop Duo, I know some people like  
> to make Duo something like a personification of Death (which could be cool but  
> if you go that route I'd like to get a feel for how Harry's status as "Master  
> of Death" affects their interactions). Possibly Harry/any pilot pre-slash or  
> slash if they get that far.

Death isn't just one being, it isn't just one entity, and it is in everything and everything which might one day die. Harry Potter sits in his garden and tends to green and growing things, and knows with a whim he could take that bit of mortality from the garden he tends. He does not, because he knows there is a balance, some must die so others might live. The universe may be a very big thing, but the Earth is an island alone in the sea of black and stars and it knows no neighbor… _yet_.

Harry looks to the stars, to where the colonies spin about like small little boats, dancing in the dark. Harry Potter knows there is no one like him, not one wizard or witch or muggle man or woman is quite the same as he is. That is because there can only be one Master of Death.

If Death is an entity, that can manifest a persona and shape with form Harry has yet to meet him or her or it, and does not wish to, ever, if at all possible. Magic is in everyone, everything, but so too is death. They go hand in hand. Some have more of one than they do of the other, and that is what makes a Hallow, for a Hallow is death given a form and shape, Harry has the resurrection Stone, the Elder wand, and the Cloak, all these objects which were made by a magic that is by nature is dead more than living.

Harry Potter feels it, like a pinch, when the Stone gleams and he knows someone has been born who can make and unmake Hallows, one who is born with more death than life within them.

"Show me." Harry mutters to the Stone, and it does, a squalling babe, with eyes the color of the sea at storm. The Stone whispers in the shapes of the once living, that this child can _become_ a Hallow, asks if the Master is pleased with this child? He can become anyone, anything, but Harry is the Master of Death and this child is his.

The child's cries calm, and Harry Potter knows that just as he can see the baby, the boy can see him – Harry wonders what the babe sees. Harry sees a loving mother, a dotting father and is reassured that the child might live a life free of death and dying, free of the Master of Death and fear of ever becoming a newly born Hallow. He is named, and Harry thinks it suits the boy.

He is safe. Harry Potter looks out for the child at first every day, than every other – perhaps just once a week, or once a month, a few days in a year, letting the boy grow up to be raised by his parents – not in fear of someone who watches him and who he can see and who never speaks.

It is only when a church burns around the boy that Harry Potter realizes how grave a mistake he made in not watching over him more carefully. Harry puts on the Cloak and it takes him to the boy's side, it only takes a breath and he's beside him, a bow who doesn't know his own name – much like Harry hadn't known he was a wizard.

0o0o0

Duo Maxwell watches his world burn, and cries like he's dying. The heat from the flames burns, but it's better to feel something – anything, than the nothing creeping into him. There is a creeping upon his skin, coldness at His presence, and Duo looks around sure that He is here. He is Death, Duo is sure, and Death has watched Duo all his life.

"Have you come to gloat?" Duo asks with a sneer, tossing his braid behind his back and standing to face off with Death, who looks about the ruins and wreck as if taking in the view. Duo doesn't expect an answer, least of all the one he gets.

"Why would I do that?" It's softly spoken, almost a whisper, and Duo has the sense that this is a man who doesn't speak often – but is making the effort now.

"I, you – you've been _watching_ me my whole life, and you speak up _now_?" Death's head tilts, and he looks Duo over from his braid to his toes, as if to be sure of whom he is. Duo Maxwell stopped talking about Death, but he never stopped remembering him – he's the first thing that Duo remembers ever seeing.

"You never needed my help before." Duo feels that coldness touch the echoing nothing and it's heavy in his throat and he can't even cry and get it out. He laughs instead, and it is bitter and biting.

"You weren't watching closely enough if you think that!" Duo Maxwell wonders if he's going to die when Death frowns at him.

"You are right and I am sorry, I thought you loved, safe, and happy. What happened here? Where is your mother, your father?" Duo thinks about all the times he's seen Death, and knows it's always been when things were going good in his life – when he was happy, Duo always thought Death was an omen, a good one.

"Both are dead, I've been living on the streets with a gang until this church took me in." Duo shivers and looks to the mobile suit that he took, that he stole and flew and fought in – he piloted it, and it had felt…good. Even standing in this, this crumbling world, he felt that thrill when he looked at it. It was wrong, he was sure, that it felt so right.

"Death, have you come for me?" Duo asked, as he looked at that suit and wondered if feeling as he did was a sin.

"I'm not Death." Duo is surprised, jerking his head to look around again at the figure of strength and shadow who had watched over his life from cradle to this, this grave.

" _Who are you_?" Duo demands, taking a step forward, wondering what he can do against this person who comes and goes but he's never seen arrive or leave.

"My name is Harry Potter, and I'm the Master of Death." Harry Potter smiles tightly, as if that title pains him.

"Why, why me…?" There are people never ready to hear what Harry Potter would answer to that question, but Duo Maxwell is a Hallow, a mortal more dead than alive who will – or won't – in dying, give form and shape to a Hallow. Who can destroy the Hallows that Harry himself is Master of.

Duo Maxwell is not a boy; he's seen more of life and knows more of death than to ever be called that. Harry takes Duo away from the ruins of his home, and walks the streets where he grew up, and talks of how's and whys, it is something Duo never forgets – and he decides at the end of it that Harry Potter may be the Master of Death, but Duo thought he was Death – when Duo is really more like Death than Harry is, he calls himself Shinigami – the God of Death, for he thinks that's what he is most like as a living Hallow.

He thinks if he becomes a Hallow, he'll be a Scythe, and laughs at the thought of his Master wielding him.


	2. Silence's Bond

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LizzieLyn's prompt: HP/Gundam Wing/AC Crossover -Continued.
> 
> (My question: Out of curiosity, which would you have him meet first?)
> 
> JER : Trowa, the entire "no-name" vs. Harry's "Boy/Freak" Good bonding over that, plus the connection that Harry had w/Hedwig goes well w/ Trowa's animal keeper abilities. I see a lot of Trowa in Harry.
> 
> (My reaction: Crap. Plot bunny.)

  


"I'm a bit too old for this, don't you think?" Duo asks of Death, a confused look on his face. It's true that Duo has never been to a circus – and apparently, neither has Harry Potter – but they are both almost a few years short of twenty. Or at least Duo is… he has no idea how _old_ Death is, and doesn't think it proper to ask that sort of question. It could end badly for Duo.

Very badly, as in early Hollow-hood. Duo doesn't want to end up like a inanimate but sentient object like the Resurrection Stone, or the Elder Want or the Invisibility Cloak just yet, he had things he wanted to _live_ for.

A traveling circus just didn't rank very high up in his list, was all.

"You're never too old for magic." Duo isn't about to argue with Death about the small fact that a muggle circus isn't _really_ magic. He gets little enough free time to spend with Harry between piloting his Deathscythe, lessons with Professor G and Sweeper's work – which had taken them here.

Harry never had any problems with working around his schedule, he'd even shown up when Duo hadn't known he was going to get free time. Sometimes Duo wondered if Harry had a life outside spending time with him, making up for a mistake against Duo that even Duo knew Harry couldn't take the full weight of shouldering. Shit happened, and you lived with managing the best you could and tried to keep going forward.

Duo thinks that in the wake of that, dealing with sticky floors and gum under the seat and people who just don't shut up should be easy. It isn't, he's as nervous and fidgety as a newly born colt, sure that someone is going to pick him out as not belonging. Harry nudges at his shoulder, smiling as if he knows what Duo is thinking – and as Harry is Death, and a wizard, it isn't beyond possibly.

The lights finally grow dim, and the show starts, in the dark Duo feels more comfortable, and he doesn't really understand why that's so true, why he feels like he belongs just out of sight. Watching, but never being watched. Duo knows he's going to free the colonies and fight in a Gundam to do it, but when that happens people will be watching his Deathsythe, and seeing a symbol of their liberty. Not him.

Duo glances to Death and sees that Harry's attention is fixed on something – no, someone else. Duo thinks for a moment he's about to see someone die, because there's a clown and his back is up against the target and some girl is throwing knives at him. Duo doesn't think he'll ever trust anyone that much, but this guy – this painted clowns, he doesn't even _flinch_.

"Gutsy." Duo admits, soft so only Death can hear, because only he's listening. Harry's lips tilt, as if Duo hasn't seen anything yet. Duo knows that he's rarely wrong, so he watches and waits for it, and doesn't miss anything.

As if playing at being a target isn't enough, the clown rides a one wheeled bike through a ring of flame, and then the show really starts. Animals that Duo has never really thought of – at all, because any animal in space is usually tamed and trained and kept locked away so only their owners see them…yet that danger that Duo never thought he'd see twists his guts and makes him shiver and sweat as if he's the one facing down what the half masked clown does without so much as blinking.

Duo's never seen anything like it, and doesn't know if he cares to see such a thing again. He looks to Harry, who's smiling at the colorful clown, not as if he only likes the show, but as if he recognizes someone familiar, it's the look he gets sometimes when he doesn't know Duo is looking at him. Duo almost hates this clown, because this is the first time Harry's smiled like that, familiar and hopeful - at a person.

It's usually birds, pictures and paintings and once when Duo got him a stuffed one, they are called owls.

Duo's never seen a live one.

0o0o0

"Look." His Master's voice is hushed and reverent, as if it might be in a church and Duo can't help in obeying him. There they are, _owls_ , white ones and small little brown ones and ones half white and half brown and every kind of color between white and brown and black. They come in so many breeds that Duo wonders how they are all still claimed to be the same species. He knows too that these are only a handful of the kinds of owls there are on Earth.

"Weren't they the bird of Athena?" Duo asks, and Harry nods thoughtfully. He studies the white one, who watches him with looming golden eyes, as if measuring him. Harry turns away from that gold look, something pained flashing like a shadow in his green eyes.

"The Little Owl was that, but the Eagle Owl and the Barn Owl were the birds of Ares her brother – while Hades had the Screech Owl as his sacred bird." Duo wonders if Harry knows every kind of owl, and what the white ones he likes so much are called.

"How do you know that?" It's a softly spoken question, and Duo looks up to see a tall man, lean looking and calm. It's the calm that the pilot of Deathscythe recognizes as belonging to the half masked painted clown. Duo can't help but tense and wonder if he'd been watching them and listening. Duo hates that he can't say for sure, because the tall boy with his hair half covering his face is just that good.

Harry's lips quirk at the question, as if it's one he's often wondered of himself.

"I had a friend once who read it out of a book, she was a bit of a know it all – but some things stick with me better than other things." Harry shrugs it away, and Duo has to wonder if one of those things that Harry might have forgotten about her was her face or her name; or if those things about her had become like sacred mysteries to him.

"Who the hell are you?" Duo demands it of the stranger who nods so thoughtfully, as if he understands better than anyone what Harry says. Death sets his hand on Duo's shoulder, to calm him, and Duo shrugs the touch away but takes the hint – he'll keep quiet and let Harry handle this, even if he doesn't like it.

"I'm Trowa…would you like to touch one of them?" Trowa can't honestly say why he offers to let this black haired man with soothing bright green eyes near the birds he seems so interested in. Trowa recognizes that look though, that longing to be near something freer than a person can ever be.

"If you think that best." Harry can't quite hide his eagerness and Trowa opens up the door that separates the owls from the people who might otherwise be temped to touch or take. The cage isn't really for the owls, they are tethered to their posts, the sharp bird of prey talons digging in or loosing depending upon their tempers. Trowa spots white and knows it's the Snowy Owl that the green eyed man had locked gazes with so keenly.

Trowa puts on a hunter's glove and takes her up onto his leather covered arm, holding her as carefully as any baby, tying her jesses so she can't flee. Those green eyes are fixed upon the owl, and Trowa wonders if he was wise to bring the Snowy Owl out, this man and his friend could overpower him and steal the owl he's offered like a gift.

"Hello there, aren't you lovely?" Trowa approves of the soothing voice he uses, and the slow movement of the back of his hand against white feathers.

"I thank you for this, Trowa Barton." For only a moment do those green eyes meet his, but it's the only moment he needs. It feels as if he's been given permission to ask what he wants and be assured of some answer. Out of anything and everything he could question, there is just one thing he really wants to know right now.

"What's your name?" Trowa asks wonderingly. That's all he really wants, a name to go with this persona.

"Harry Potter." The owl lifts her head to touch his still hand with her feathers, soft and stubborn to get a last touch or two in. Harry indulges her as if he knows just how she likes to be touched. It had taken Trowa weeks to learn to do what Harry does in just a few moments, utterly charming the Snowy Owl into a content daze.

"We must get going, good hunting Hedwig." Trowa doesn't often approve of their visitors naming animals, but this Snowy Owl hasn't yet got a name and it suits her. She sits heavily upon his arm and it isn't until she's back upon her post that Trowa realizes he had never told Harry Potter _that_ last name, but he had said it none the less.

Trowa looks quickly for Harry and other boy who had been at his side, but there is no sign of them. He does the only thing he really can and looks up Harry Potter and Hedwig after activating all of Doktor S's protections; all he finds is a mention of him as her master upon the inscription of the Tomb of Familiars. He had been one of the last wizards the Boy Who Lived they called him until there hadn't been any proper witches or wizards that could find him.

Trowa sends information about the boy who had been at Harry's side, and gets from Doktor S only an unsure silence. Trowa Barton doesn't need to be told to watch for them, his curiosity once stirred is as bad as any cat's. He's sure, though there isn't anything to pin down for a reason to that feeling, he'll see them again – and soon.


End file.
